


a whole new world

by 101places



Series: framework role-reversal [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Doctor Who References, F/M, Gen, Set in the Framework but like... it's not as dark as that makes it sound, The Framework Universe (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 05:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19055851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/101places/pseuds/101places
Summary: The Resistance attempts to recruit Dr Holden Radcliffe, and things go very, very badly.( AKA : Framework role-reversal part 2 ft. Doctor Who references as plot points )





	a whole new world

**Author's Note:**

> kinda a sequel to my other framework role-reversal but you dont need to read it to understand this. i might write something else set in this au but [vague shrugging]
> 
> also happy pride month im Definitely gonna get some good gay shit for it!
> 
> as always kudos/comments are appreciated! thank you for reading!

“This is a terrible plan, and you’re going to get us all killed.” Agent Ward said, not for the first time.

Agent Johnson rolled her eyes. “I told you, Ward, I know what I’m doing.”

Ever since they’d left the Playground- and, indeed, even  _ before _ then- the two had been bickering back and forth about a whole range of things. Simmons felt that, perhaps, she should be backing up Ward considering that she’d known him for significantly longer, but she couldn’t help but feel support for Johnson instead.

It wasn’t as if Simmons had ever seen eye-to-eye with Ward. From when they’d first met he’d terrified her and, though she’d never been able to pin down exactly what it was about him that caused such an extreme reaction, she had never found it easy to be in his company. Likely as a result of how tense she was around him, he didn’t much enjoy  _ her _ company, either. They were each able to respect what the other gave to the resistance, but that was as far as their camaraderie went.

In a completely different way to Ward, Johnson was also strange. From the first time they’d met- only a day prior- Simmons felt as though she could trust her implicitly. Even though she had no real reason to feel any particular way about Johnson, Simmons was confident that if she stuck by her side, things would work out- so when Johnson suggested going on a mission to an unfamiliar island, to meet a man that she didn’t know, when the resistance struggled with completing even the most essential of missions, she agreed immediately.

Logically, it was a bad decision. She was aware of that. But Johnson- and that teacher she’d brought with her, Coulson- made her feel so secure. She rather felt that she’d follow them to the end of the world.

The four of them made their way through the island, and Simmons tuned out the noise of Johnson and Ward arguing. To her side, Coulson was staring around at everything with a look of undisguised awe, and Simmons couldn’t help but smile.

“This is amazing,” Coulson stated. “I can’t believe I’m actually with the Resistance- and  _ you _ .”

This wasn’t the first time that Simmons had heard sentiments like this. Over the past few years she had worked to research Inhumans, debunking the harmful propaganda that HYDRA spread. Many Inhumans and Inhuman allies had spoken about their admiration of her. Yet, for some reason, hearing it from Coulson caused a surge of pride to rise up.

“I just do what anyone in my position would do.”

Coulson opened his mouth to argue, but ahead of them Johnson and Ward came to a sudden stop. Coulson and Simmons shared a look, before quietly picking up their pace so they could see what had happened.

Ahead of them was a rather nice house, and standing in the garden without a care in the world was their target.

“That him?” Ward asked.

Johnson nodded, her face firm, and she stepped out from the cover of the undergrowth. The man was startled to see her, taking a step backward.

“Daisy.” He said, his voice further showing his surprise.

“Radcliffe.” Johnson replied dryly. “Feel like turning off this Nazi dictatorship simulator you’ve made?”

Radcliffe looked away. “I never meant for this to happen- it’s AIDA. She’s twisted the Framework into this. She  _ killed me _ and banished me here to stop me from doing anything against her.”

“What?” Whatever Johnson had been expecting, it clearly hadn’t been that.

Ward chose that moment to step out, walking over to the pair. “If this is him, we need to go.”

Radcliffe reacted instantly to Ward, taking quick steps backwards. Simmons hadn’t understood a lot of what he’d said, but that reaction to Ward struck her. She’d reacted similarly when she’d first met him.

“Oh, you’re- you’re Agent Ward,” Radcliffe seemed to calm himself slightly. “I never knew you before…”

Johnson sighed, “Look, this doesn’t matter. We can work all of this out later. Ward’s right, we need to go now. You can come with us by choice or by force, it doesn’t matter to me which.”

“Wait, wait- I can’t go. Daisy, you remember Agnes? She’s  _ here _ . I can’t leave her.”

“Then we’ll just take her, too.” Johnson decided, but before they were given further opportunity to discuss, they were interrupted by the roar of a plane overhead.

“That’s not good.” Coulson muttered beside Simmons.

Radcliffe looked over at Ward and Johnson, panicked. “You two need to hide. Now.”

Ward and Johnson retreated to where Simmons and Coulson had been hiding, watching as the plane landed and the heads of HYDRA emerged. To her side, Simmons could feel Johnson tense as the Doctor stepped into view.

The group of resistance members watched as Madame Hydra approached Radcliffe, open mocking and contempt on her face and in her words- and, then, continued to watch as the situation only got worse when Agnes arrived, looking the spitting image of Madame Hydra herself.

“Radcliffe intends to  _ replace me _ with this woman.” Madame Hydra spoke to the Doctor, clear disgust in her voice.

“Holden, what’s happening?” Agnes asked, her voice shaking. Though she had the same face as Madame Hydra, she couldn’t be more different.

“That’s- that’s simply not  _ true _ ,” Radcliffe tried to reason with Madame Hydra, his gaze darting between the three people in front of him. “Agnes doesn’t have anything to do with this, please.”

“These subversives are conspiring against me. Against  _ us _ .” Madame Hydra continued, pulling her gun out of her holster and handing it to the Doctor. “You know what we must do.”

The Doctor took the gun, and pointed it at Agnes. The woman’s eyes widened with fear, and Radcliffe began pleading for her life.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Simmons saw Ward move, setting up his sniper.

“What- What are you doing?” Daisy hissed.

“I have a clear shot.” Ward ground out in return. “We can save her and stop all of this right now.”

“What? No. You can’t do that.” Daisy argued.

“ _ Like hell I can’t _ .”

Simmons looked back out into the clearing. Killing the heads of HYDRA was a good thing. Thinking of all of the suffering that she had witnessed over the past years- this could only, ever be a good thing. So why did the thought of it make her feel sick to her stomach?

There was something about the expression on the Doctor’s face, Simmons slowly realised. He had barely spoken during this confrontation, and his face wasn’t the one of a man consumed with hatred- it was the face of a man trying to distance himself from the situation. Of a man trying to think his way out of a problem. While she didn’t know  _ how _ , Simmons found herself able to read every micro-expression on his face in a way that she didn’t think she would even be able to read her own.

She looked down at Ward, and saw his finger close around the trigger. Without giving it much thought, she reached over and grabbed the gun, pulling at it so the barrel was pointed skywards- so the bullet that should have landed squarely through the Doctor’s skull harmlessly pierced the heavens instead.

As the gunshot ricocheted around the clearing, all hell broke loose.

Radcliffe looked Agnes over, reassuring himself that she hadn’t been the target. Agnes, herself, looked about ready to pass out from the fear of the situation- and, really, who could have blamed her?

The Doctor’s eyes were wide as he stared at the gun in his hand, as if he half expected his hand to have pulled the trigger without his permission.

Johnson let out a breath of relief, for reasons that Simmons couldn’t yet understand.

Ward turned to face Simmons, a look of equal-parts shock, betrayal and anger on his face.

It was Coulson, however, who noticed what they all should have noticed- the way Madame Hydra was staring at exactly where they were hidden.

“We should go.” Coulson spoke lowly as the head of HYDRA began to make her way towards them.

Johnson and Ward began their retreat, but it took Simmons until Coulson gently grabbed her arm and tugged her away for her to follow. She couldn’t understand it, but something about her body just felt so  _ wrong _ and it was becoming difficult to think straight. If it wasn’t for Coulson, she wasn’t sure if she’d even have the presence of mind to keep moving.

When they got a fair distance away, Ward turned on Simmons with a furious glare, and Simmons felt that oh-so familiar fear rise up, though she held her ground and met his gaze.

“What the  _ hell _ was that, Simmons?  _ I had him _ .”

“You were aiming at the wrong person.” Simmons had no idea why she had said that.

A bullet whizzed past them, interrupting their argument.

“Can we do this later?” Coulson prompted, and hearing the sound of HYDRA feet on the path behind them, no one tried to argue otherwise.

The group took off again, and soon the quinjet they’d arrived in was in sight. Just a little longer they’d be able to return safely- and Simmons would surely face severe discipline for what she had done. But as she ran and her head pulsated and her thoughts continued to race, she found herself making the most embarrassing, dangerous, ridiculous mistake of her life.

She tripped over her own two feet.

As she felt the hand of a HYDRA agent roughly curl around her arm and pull her back, and heard Johnson’s voice desperately calling out her name, she wasn’t sure what was worse: the fear of what was surely about to happen, or the humiliation of the fact that her death would come through something as petty as a lack of coordination.

The agent who had grabbed her pointed the barrel of his gun to her head, and she shut her eyes, waiting, until-

“The Doctor wants them alive.” Another agent said.

The first pulled the barrel away from her head, and instead brought it down on her head.

 

.

 

When Simmons woke up, she felt panic in her chest again.

First, she took stock of her physical status. She didn’t seem to be injured, aside from the steady ache on her head from where she’d been knocked out. Next, she looked around the room she was in. Some kind of cell, it seemed like. This must be where HYDRA keeps ‘subversives’, Simmons realised.

She began to walk around the room, testing the walls and trying to see if there was anything in here that she could use to her advantage, but after a few minutes she determined that the only thing of any note was the air vent. She approached it, and tried to unattach it, but it seemed that without a screwdriver- or another tool- that would be impossible. 

Defeated, she dropped down to the ground beside it, pulling her legs up to her chest and dropping her head onto her knees.

“Is someone there?” A voice echoed around the room, and Simmons looked to the air vent.

“...Hello?”

“Jemma?” The voice asked. It was familiar, and she quickly placed it.

“You… you’re Dr Radcliffe, right?”

“That’s right.” Radcliffe sounded defeated. “I’m so sorry that this happened.”

Simmons shrugged. “It was our idea to go to your island. It isn’t any more your fault than it is mine.”

Radcliffe laughed weakly. “Oh, my dear, I wish that was true- but it would not be unfair for you to blame me for the very state of this world.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Simmons stated. “I may not really know who you are, Dr Radcliffe, but I can hardly see how any one person is to blame for the state of things. I’ve seen how we ended up in this place… it was the joint effort of high-up HYDRA agents, manipulating those around them like pawns. Unless you are one of those agents, I fail to see how you are to blame for this.”

“They didn’t tell you anything, did they?” Radcliffe sounded curious.

“What do you mean?”

Before Radcliffe was given the opportunity to explain, Simmons heard the door to his cell open, and her blood ran cold when she heard Madame Hydra’s voice through the vent. There was the sound of a scuffle before the door shut again. Then, there was silence.

“Dr Radcliffe?” Simmons called out, but there was no reply.

Left alone once again, Simmons curled up tighter and shut her eyes, hoping that the solution to this problem would just come to her.

 

.

 

There was no real way to keep track of time in the cell, though Simmons was sure that it must have been hours before the door to her room entered, and the Doctor stood in the doorway. He waved off the two agents accompanying him and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

Simmons watched him carefully, trying to focus through the strange sensation that had settled over her mind.

He stood in the room for a few moments, staring at her, before taking a seat, but he still said nothing, and the silence was beginning to drive Simmons mad.

“You should know that I do not intend to sell out my organisation. You would be better off just killing me now.” She hoped that she sounded braver than she felt.

“No!” It was the first thing that she’d heard him say, and she was surprised by both the lack of control he seemed to be displaying and the accent. “I’m not- nothing bad is going to happen to you. I swear.”

“What.” Simmons couldn’t help but question him. “Am I supposed to believe that? That Dr Leopold Fitz is going to  _ protect _ me? I don’t know what kind of  _ technique _ this is but I am not so stupid as to fall for it.”

“I- I understand, but, I’m-” He groaned bringing his hand up to rub his temple ( a common gesture he made when stressed- she wasn’t sure how she knew that ). “That’s not  _ me _ . I don’t mean- I mean that is  _ literally _ not who I am. Didn’t- Didn’t Daisy tell you anything?”

She was reminded of what Radcliffe had said, but knew that he could have been ordered to implant the first seeds of doubt. This didn’t mean anything.

“Are you trying to imply that you are working with Agent Johnson?”

“Yes! Yes, she’s my  _ friend _ .” He spoke empathetically, completely differently to both what she’d heard of him from others in the past, and how he’d been behaving at Radcliffe’s island. “She’s  _ our _ friend. There’s a lot I have to explain, and I don’t know how much time I have-”

“Then talk quickly.”

He seemed surprised. “You believe me?”

“No.” She hesitated. “But I am a scientist. I know that keeping an open mind is best. I will listen.”

And, anyway- this was better than torture or interrogation. Perhaps she could keep him talking until she came up with a plan to escape this place.

“Thank you.  _ Thank you _ , Jemma.” There was a spark of hope to his eyes. “This whole world- all of it is just a virtual reality. We made it together- or, the original version, at least. We called it the Framework- it was supposed to be a way to run agents through more complex simulations- SHIELD agents, I mean.

“Then… Dr Radcliffe took it- he kidnapped our friends, and  _ you _ , and put you all in this  _ twisted _ version of it. He replaced you all with LMDs- Life Model Decoys, they’re androids- and Daisy and I were the only ones to get away. We came here to find you all and bring you  _ home _ .”

Simmons listened to him speak and felt something twist inside of her. Dimly, she could remember overhearing snippets of conversation between Johnson, Coulson and Ward. From what she knew, the stories matched.

“Coulson and Agent Ward- are they our friends?”

He physically recoiled at the mention of Ward, “Coulson is. He was the Director of SHIELD for a long time. Ward… I- I’m sorry you had to see a version of him again. He… He’s complicated.  _ Not _ a friend.”

“Is that why I’ve always felt so odd around him?” Simmons wondered, before shaking her head. That wasn’t an important question, and she couldn’t give away too much information, lest it be taken and manipulated to force her to reaching incorrect conclusions. “Who else are our friends?”

“Agent May- she’s a HYDRA agent in here, but she works for SHIELD with us in the real world, and Director Mace- um, the Patriot.” He hesitated. “Dr Radcliffe, Agnes and AI-- Madame Hydra are from the real world, too, but- I don’t know what’s happening with Radcliffe and Agnes, but Madame Hydra is  _ not _ to be trusted.”

“And what about everyone else?”

He hesitated. “They’re… um… okay, this part is going to sound crazy-”

“Unlike every other part?”

He smiled nervously, “W-Well, yeah. That’s- That’s fair. But everyone else- they’re not real. They’re just- lines of code.”

“You’re right,” Simmons remarked, “That  _ does _ sound crazy.”

He sighed. “I know. I know, and I- I don’t have much to  _ prove _ it. When we made the Framework, we made it exactly like the real world. We wanted it to be as perfect of a replica as possible, so the simulations could better prepare the agents. There’s not- there aren’t any  _ reality checks _ that I can use to prove it.”

“Then how can you expect me to believe what you’re saying?”

That nervous smile returned to his face, “Because we’ve never spoken before, right? But in the real world- in the real world we’re close. We have been for more than 10 years. I know things about you that I shouldn’t- ask me anything, and I’ll answer.”

Simmons fell silent for a while, trying to think of a good enough question. After toying it around in her head for a while, she asked: “Why did I decide to become a scientist?”

“You were six years old, and you learnt about climate change.” He recounted, the nervousness leaving his face as he spoke. “Your dad- he worked for Roxxon. You were furious with him, especially when he wouldn’t agree to quit. You said that you wanted to become a scientist because you felt that you had a responsibility to make up for the harm he was doing. From anyone else, I never would’ve believe that story- but you? It… always made perfect sense.”

Simmons remained quiet. That was exactly right- but it didn’t necessarily mean anything. Three questions, she decided- she’d ask three questions, and then look over her data.

“What was my first love?”

He tried to suppress an eye-roll. “You tell people it was the stars, but that’s not true. It was Peggy Carter.”

Right again.

Simmons wracked her brain, trying to think of another question. Something personal. Something that no one would know- something that no evil HYDRA mastermind would be prepared for.

“Who is my favourite companion from Doctor Who?”

He laughed quietly. “You don’t have just one- or, I mean, it changes a lot depending on how you’re feeling. But, um- right now you’re probably confused. Stressed.” He hesitated a moment, a strange look on his face, “Scared. So, you’d want to be thinking of someone  _ brave _ , who can take difficult situations and twist them around… which means your favourite is Clara Oswald.”

By this point, Simmons was pretty convinced that no one who  _ didn’t know her _ could read her that well.

She breathed out. “Okay then. What’s your plan?”

That hopeful glint was back in his eyes, “Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know,” She admitted. “What you’re saying is insane. But I don’t know how many other options I have right now, so I’m willing to see where this leads.”

“Thank you. I’m going to get you out of here, and then I’ll do everything in my power to make it up to you.” He stood from his chair, glancing to the door nervously. “But… I should go now. I don’t want to make AI-- um, Madame Hydra suspicious. I’ll be back. Don’t tell anyone what I told you.”

As he started towards the door, Simmons found words leaving her without conscious thought. “Be careful.”

He looked over at her with a gentle expression. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to work out. You’ll see.”

He turned back to the door and schooled his expression into ‘the Doctor’s usual blank mask, and without another word, he left.

Simmons leaned back against the wall behind her and shut her eyes. It was strange. Even though what she’d just been told was absolutely out of this world ( literally ), and it should have shocked her to her core, all she could feel was calmness. She really did feel that everything was going to work out.


End file.
